The Loki Identity
by PurpleMoon3
Summary: At the end of Avengers Loki is bond by magical chains that suppress his magic along with the very thing that makes Loki, Loki. This results in a cosmic hiccup that causes Colin Gunderson, the mortal incarnation of Loki, to move in. And Colin may not know what is going on, but he's sure he doesn't like being poked and prodded at by strange shadow governments.
1. Musical Chairs Is Not A Game

**The Loki Identity**

**An Avengers, Almighty Johnsons Crossover**

**Disclaimer: _Avengers_ is the work of MARVEL, Disney, Joss Whedon, and many, many decades of cartoonists at work. _The Almighty Johnsons_ is a TV Fantasy Series developed and created by South Pacific Pictures, James Griffin, and Rachel Lang.**

**A/N: Do not expect much of a reason as to why Colin now has possession of Loki's body. It simply amuses me. The Cosmos decided it needed to be done. The cosmos being the author. **

* * *

**Part One: Musical Chairs Is Not A Game (Except When It Is)**

SHIELD Underground Bunker

"Aye, Son of Fury, my father ordered these chains crafted specifically for my brother."

"But will they hold him? I've known my fair share of men who were more dangerous hogtied than with a weapon in hand."

"I have been assured the... mask... will stopper his magics as well as render him insensate and pliable. He will have not the strength to fight, nor the mind to scheme until he has been brought before the AllFather to face judgement for his crimes."

"So your basically drugging him into compliance?"

"No comments, Stark."

* * *

Auckland, New Zealand

"I HATE YOU!" Eva Gunderson screamed, decaying plants going unnoticed as her temper rose. "I FUCKING HATE YOU! YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST DO WHATEVER YOU WANT! YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING!"

"Love you too, sweetheart." Colin shrugged off his daughter's rant and knocked back a shot of Fenris Vodka. The brand name amused him and as he ran a finger along the lip of the glass he summoned a bit of heat into the excitable liquid. It flamed nicely. "Did you forget to take your meds again?"

"I'M NOT CRAZY! I'M NOT CRAZY AND NEITHER WAS MOM! YOU MADE HER LEAVE! YOU MADE ME LEAVE!" Eva tossed a glass clock that shattered against the fireplace and sent glass scattering into the white, plush carpet. It was going to be a bitch to pick out. Easier to just get a new carpet. It wasn't like he couldn't afford it. His daughter took a breath and though she was still shaking she managed to bring her voice back down. Tucking her hair out of her face Eva spoke, "But I met some people today; people who told me what I was. Why I feel the way I do. _Things you should have told me!_"

"What would you have wanted me to say? Congratulations, it's goddess puberty?"

"THAT I WAS FRIGG! THAT I WAS NORMAL! NOT THAT I NEEDED THERAPY AND 24 HOUR SUPERVISION IN AN INSANE ASYLUM!"

"But Eva, you aren't..." Colin trailed off, dropping his glass as a sudden sense of vertigo flushed through him. He shook his head and tried to focus on his daughter's face. She couldn't be Frigg. There was absolutely nothing about her that was Frigg-ish. Took after her mother, really, in both looks and personality. Lofn's incarnation had been quite the little spitfire, both in bed and out. "You can't..."

He fell, tipping sideways off the couch and hitting his head against the coffee table. The glass cracked.

Eva rushed forward, anger draining from her face as she began to shake her father's shoulder while dabbing at the blood quickly staining the white carpet. "...daddy? _DADDY!_"

* * *

SHIELD Holding Cell

Colin came to in a place with dim lights that he immediately recognized as not being his. For one thing, the bed he was lying on was far too uncomfortable. He spent good money on quiet, comfy springs for all manner of activity that could last for as long as his considerable libido dictated. And while he may not be all that appreciative of his partners even he had standards.

If he wasn't lying on the deplorable mattress, he'd had burnt it.

"You sure he's safe?" Colin's godhood enhanced senses picked up as he fought through what felt like a massive hangover, the likes of which he hadn't seen since the 1985 Folkmoot. Damn but Heimdall could drink them all under the table.

"He's been sitting there like that for hours." A considering pause followed by snickers. "God or not I heard the Hulk turned him into a fucking rag-doll."

Colin felt two surges of emotion. One was a sharp spike of -not fear, he wouldn't call it fear, maybe concern- at the throwaway comment on his godhood. _He_ certainly hadn't forgotten the circumstances behind the Gunderson clan relocating to New Zealand. The other feeling was a wriggling thread of red-hot rage at the men's laughter. He _hated_ it when people laughed at him.

As the voices trailed off Colin cracked open his eyes and cautiously sat up. He tried to open his mouth, to speak and find out if there were microphones or cameras monitoring him, but found his attempt blocked. Odd, how he almost hadn't noticed it. The chains that clinked as he raised his hands to explore the odd muzzle gave him pause and he looked down in surprise.

His hands weren't his hands.

And he had no idea what he was wearing. So. Much. Leather.

_Oh My Odin. _ Colin thought. _I've pulled a Freyja._


	2. What Every Norse God Should Know

**The Loki Identity**

**An Avengers, Almighty Johnsons Crossover**

**A/N- On the runes that appear in this chapter: they are based on a few internet searches in which I picked the names/spellings I preferred. I'm not a mythology student or anything, so if there are discrepancies now or later there is your explanation.**

**Also, the flippant attitude toward attempted murder/actual murder displayed by most of the gods of AJ strikes me as hilarious. Now just imagine if that was how things were in Marvel!Asgard. "Loki! You sent the Destroyer to kill me and all my friends!" "Yeah, and? Not like it worked. No harm no foul. I'm going to lunch."  
**

**Part Two - What Every Norse God Should Know (But Doesn't)**

SHIELD Holding Cell

The restraints -not _his_ restraints, because no power on this earth could really, truly hold _him_- were made of some strange, lightweight alloy that Colin couldn't identify but tickled the back of his mind. They were also layered in magic, and the hum of power was unmistakable once he knew what to look for. It dampened his own esoteric senses while the muzzle prevented him from speaking words of power. The bindings were different from his usual arcane methods, but Loki was the god of magic as well as fire and leisure, and Colin made it a point to have all his bases covered. Learning had been a bit difficult: the soul of Loki incarnated only marginally more often than Odin and few of the other Loki left records, but god-instinct and his natural bull headedness pulled through.

Colin may not have been familiar with whatever methods of enchantment were used in the forging of the shackles, but as he closed his eyes and let the part of him that was pure spark of magic and roaring flames well up he tasted earth, and meat. _Dwarves._

He had not expected that. Last he checked he'd had an _understanding_ with the current Ivaldi. Colin frowned as his fingers -so long and delicate, but excellent for spell craft and Colin had to wonder just who it was he had taken over- began tracing familiar lines over the metal manacles.

Magic was his birthright. He'd be damned if someone tried to take it -to _use_ it- against him like this.

_Kano. The rune of fire, of passion, Loki in all but name._

His fingers flicked over the metal, motions made easy from hours of practice, his own instinct, pulling power from his own god-spirit, and as he did so he noticed something… else. Nestled deeply in the core of the body was another, a soul seeped in a tainted green streaked with blue, and Colin frowned. He was accustomed to dealing with two souls in one body -all the True descendants were- but three? There was a saying about that.

The body must not have been entirely vacant when he took up residence. Still, he wasn't going to give it up when he had no idea where his old bones were, what condition they were in, and Eva knew exactly the way he would have wanted to go out. He'd named his flame-thrower after her, after all.

The manacles warmed at his touch.

_Isa. The rune of ice, of rest, of a frozen stagnation._

Isa was easier. A straight line, narrow and tall, like the frost giants of old. Colin traced it right over the place he had writ Kano and hummed beneath the leather mask as the third soul jerked as if struck -and it was tired soul, he noticed, barely even registering the presence of its new roommates- and a thread of icy energy spooled out and curled around their bonds, drawn to the rune.

And here Colin had been expecting to pull the power from Midgard, from Yggdrasil itself. It was possible his new body had already belonged to a god, maybe, but then why would he be bound in an obviously military establishment with chains designed by dwarves, for gods? Gods didn't go around advertising their status. It wasn't the middle ages anymore, but such could still get the unsuspecting pagan killed.

Colin did not like the implications, and traced the final rune of his triumvirate with a white-hot anger simmering just below the surface.

_Hagalaz. Disruption and change, often violent, but of a good, helpful sort. Usually._

Colin finished, then began the process again. _Kano. Isa. Hagalaz_. He sat on the terribly, terribly uncomfortable bed back pressed against the wall, legs crossed, eyes closed, hands in lap. _Kano. Isa. Hagalaz._ He was the picture perfect prisoner. His fingers licked along the metal as if in a nervous tick. He doubted, but wouldn't put it past his captors to recognize what he was doing. _Kano. Isa. Hagalaz._

Though Colin preferred pure will magic, and power-bond words to focus it, he was no stranger to the oldest, strongest form. It was a pity so few gods bothered learning it, instead of using their talents for parlor tricks or denying themselves outright.

Because Runic Magic was Powerful. It was that which made the first Odin so great. Runes did not draw from one entity, but the very universe itself, impossible to deny or block out. To seal an agreement in runes was to invite the cosmos itself to strike the oath-breaker down, and the cosmos _would_. There was power old as Yggdrasil in the blocky looking lines, power that Colin, Loki in a mortal shell, had made it his business to know.

_Kano. Isa. Hagalaz. _

The chains heated. The chains cooled. Rapidly, at the same time, tumbling one after another, fire and ice, hot and cold, and then…? _Hagalaz._

Colin smiled as he felt the enchantments crack, felt that third soul turn over curiously and try to peak out through his eyes.

_No._ Colin slapped it down, firming his own control. He had been cohabiting and controlling the soul of a god since his twenty-first birthday. One little… whatever… was nothing compared to the personification of fire and passion. _Not yet. We aren't ready yet._

One of his guards -several, actually, all armed with the most dangerous, sleek looking guns Colin had ever seen- entered his cell with a tray of what looked like gruel. And a straw.

"Wake up, Loki. It's shwarma time." The man explained with a mocking grin. "Your brother thought you should try it but as we can't risk taking off the gag,_ it blends_!"

Colin felt himself freeze in place, completely involuntarily. He didn't have any brothers. So. This body had a brother, possibly another god or possibly one of those cross-bow toting zealots, who had sold him out. To mortals. Government, military mortals. And they knew exactly who he was with the means to -relatively- contain and control him.

_Very well._ Colin thought as he ignored the cold bowl of possibly drugged slop. Such news was game changing. He had to get out, and not just to save his own very valuable skin, but every god on the planet would be in danger. If not from religious persecution -and that was an old hat- but from people and organizations with the means to capture and contain -to breed?- their own armies of pagan deities… _Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods._

Perhaps this was why he found himself inhabiting a body not his own. Was something trying to warn him, the traditional trouble-shooter of the Norse Pantheon?

As Colin, he'd had contacts. He was inquisitive and he learned things other people didn't like being learned.

Colin imagined Eva growing up in a place like the whispered of Red Room, and felt cold.

* * *

Hospital. Auckland, New Zealand.

He was dead. The bane of her existence -really, just the past few years- was dead. She tried to hate him, still, but behind all the feelings of loneliness and betrayal were years love and a desperation for approval. She had thought she'd stopped caring, but as Eva sat in the hard plastic of the waiting room chair holding her arms all she could remember was holding her father's hand as mother threw her duffle into the back of the jeep and drove off into the sunset.

_"Daddy, why is mama leaving? Did we do something wrong? I said I was sorry! You should apologize, too!"_

_"It isn't us, my little hellion. She can't help it. It isn't in her nature to do steady relationships. Doesn't mean she doesn't love us."_

What was she supposed to do, now? Dad had been a narcissistic, lying, pain in the ass but he'd been a _constant._ A steady, specific point, when her mind and her hormones were betraying her and now he was brought low by a, a _dizzy-spell_ and a _table_.

A pair of nurse scrubs invaded Eva's vision. Hands took her own. "Eva? I just heard. How are you holding up?"

Eva blinked away her fugue and tried to focus on the other goddess. "I killed him."

"What?"

"It was me. I- I must have used my powers. I was just… so angry. But I didn't-"

Michele shook her head. "Frigg doesn't kill people. She's the goddess of marriage and childbirth. Prophecy. The AllMother. You _couldn't_ have used your powers to kill him. It was a just a terrible, terribly convenient accident."

Eva withdrew her hands from Michele's, bowing her head and causing her hair to fall before her face like a dark curtain. "…what?"

"I know it's probably a shock, but he was a god, and gods are… well… the less said the better. And I'm sure as a lawyer he probably had quite the insurance policy, so you'll be set for a while."

Eva felt an icy rage creep through her blood. The fluorescent light above them flickered, making a popping noise, and she barely heard the sound of Stacy her not-really-kinda-is a groupie sit down. The slim woman offered up a cup of brackish looking hospital coffee, eyes darting between the other two goddesses. There was a rush in Eva's ears.

"That…_ god_… was my FATHER, you FUCKING whore!" Eva screamed, anger pouring out as she balled her fist and punched the nurse in the face. It felt good. It felt… right. It was like a thousand broken shards of glass had suddenly fallen back into place creating the most beautiful sculpture.

Eva slid off the chair and ducked Michele's blind counter as her blood roared through her veins. She moved right and redirected a punch with her forearm, grinning all the while. She'd never actually been in a fight before. Shouting matches, many, but an actual brawl?

"Eva, stop!"

"This is a hospital, not a back alley!"

Michele landed a kick to her side, but the pain was more of a rush and Eva planted her fist in Michele's unprotected diaphragm. It was as if there was someone else inside, someone whispering to her what to do, how to move, and she didn't want to fight that pull anymore. Better to give in. She was tired, and it was so _easy_.

The raw anger felt better than the sadness.

"STOP FIGHTING!" Someone dodged around their brawl, slipping in like an eel through water, and strong arms broke through her defense and pinned her arms to her side preventing her from taking her pound of flesh. _Odin_ that strange, cold, spiteful part of her supplied with difference. "Eva, Eva calm down. Please. _Calm down_."

When had she started crying? Eva blinked and watched, panting and dazed, as Anders' power rolled over Michele, his eyes hard with concentration while orderlies physically held the other goddess back. A bloody scalpel was pried from the love goddesses hand.

"She said it was good thing." Eva bit out, sagging into Axl's arms, absently noticing the sad bouquet of wilted lilies in his hand. "Said I should be happy he's dead. He wasn't the best, he lied and he cheated, but, fuck, he was mine! He was my dad. We were fucked up, but we were a family."

"I know." Axl stroked her hair, flowers falling forgotten, guiding them to the doors. "I know."

Eva didn't know what to do. One of Axl's brothers -Mike?- clapped her shoulder and jogged over to talk to the hospital security that was still arriving.

* * *

Hospital Parking Lot, Auckland

"He's not dead." Ingrid slurred, pressing against Olaf's car for support. Her be-ringed fingers tapped against the neck of the bottle as she stared at the glowing lights of the hospital, watching the incarnation of Odin and the Handmaid Fulla escort Eva home. "Well, he's dead. But he's not… _dead_ dead. At least, it doesn't feel like… like the story is complete. I know stories. This one… that one… isn't over."

"Well, yeah." Olaf responded, equally impaired. "We all die, eventually, but then we're born again. It's what we do."

"Nuuu! I wasn't talking about Loki. His Ingrid half."

"Colin?"

"Yes."

"…I don't know how pertinent it is right now, but you think this has anything to do with that the giants have been saying?" Olaf asked, debating the wisdom of rolling a few special fags in such close proximity to Responsible!Mike.

Ingrid dragged her attention from his drink, peering up at him. "You've been talking to giants?"

"Hey, I'm almost ninety years old. I've traveled. Made friends and influenced people. Besides, I'm Baldur. Everyone loves me."

They shared a few moments of silence, each oracles thoughts drawn to snakes. Some encircled the world. Some had too many heads.


	3. Secret Agent Man Woman God

**The Loki Identity**

**An Avengers, Almighty Johnsons Crossover**

**A/N- This chapter. The bane of my week. Was rewritten soooo many times.**

**Part Three: Secret Agent Man… Woman… God… Thing.**

Bronx Outskirts, New York

Overall, Darcy Lewis was a rather unremarkable woman. She had no special skills or training, no particular genius for any of the maths, sciences, or arts, and had little to no drive to better herself or her community. Aside from a brief period in her junior year of Undergrad were she dropped and enrolled in more classes than was advisable and switched her major no less than twelve times in half as many months before settling comfortably in the Political Sciences, there was absolutely nothing in Darcy Lewis' record that would set her apart from the rest of the teeming streams of humanity.

Even a self-proclaimed god was aware of her utter forgetableness, having not bothered to grace her with a surname when he addressed everyone else with theirs.

So there was no reason for Darcy to be whispering under her breathe the lyrics to _Into the Void_, bobbing her head, as she was escorted to an operation center that had required her to sign non-disclosure agreements for the non-disclosure agreements before they even considered telling her where Eric was or why he had requested her presence. But he had, and the old man had been like a father to her when she was having her existential mid-college crisis, snagging her an internship and getting her away from all the places that would have been tempting to make bad decisions at, and throwing her the best surprise 21st birthday ever, so when the black suits showed up at her apartment, she went.

And if her dreams lately had been plagued by fire and starlight and green-green eyes that made her wake up sweating in bed with a warm purring low in her stomach and desperate need to change her panties?

There absolutely nothing remarkable about Darcy Lewis.

Except, on her birth certificate, she wasn't Darcy Lewis.

Darcy Morgensen's mother died in childbirth, and her father had been killed in the home while Darcy was at the baby sitter's. He'd been found with an arrow through his chest, car keys in hand. If she hadn't been so young when it happened, barely speaking and still toddling about, she knew she probably wouldn't have been adopted out.

But because there was nothing of note about Darcy Lewis, one of thousands of unfortunate children, she passed through walls of security and armed escorts to see a man with both head and emotional trauma, who had been like a father to her and wanted a little comfort of the old and familiar sort. Darcy smiled her patented, absent minded and vaguely amused smile, took the ear buds out of her ears and wrapped him in nearly bone-cracking hug.

SHIELD Surveillance Room

Natasha was… unsettled. She was a spy. Of this she was not ashamed of. She read people, and read through the lies they put up, for her daily bread. Often her skill at such was the only thing that kept her alive. And yet… as she watched the security footage of Loki's cell she felt a murmur of disquiet settle along her spine. There was Loki. Defeated. Hulk-smashed into submission and his army nullified by a, admittedly, lucky strike.

When Thor had placed the manacles on their prisoner, Loki had instantly listed to the side as his eyes went out of focus. He had been shuffled off to his specially ordered cell that would flood with poisonous, flammable gas (the designers contemplated simply sucking out all the oxygen, but for a god who supposedly survived a free-fall through space…) if he so much as sneezed wrong. He hadn't sneezed. He hadn't even shaken his fist and said something like, _And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn't for you meddling Avengers!_ Loki, to all appearances, was a nullified threat who had given up.

And yet…

There was nothing that Natasha could put her finger on and say, "_Ah ha_!" but the defeated air had evaporated. Now, looking at him, Natasha was put in the mind of a hunting spider -a wolf- waiting for the perfect moment. He wouldn't weave webs of misdirection and deceit. He would run down what he wanted and take it. Elegance in simplicity.

But what did she have of proof but a slight change in stance: a comfortable slouch instead of princely posture? A certain gleam in the eyes that peered over the mask? All those could be explained away by the sedative effect of the chains. Could her suspicions just be left over fear? Were her own insecurities -he was a god-like being, after all- tainting her read?

She had misjudged the Banner situation, even though seeing the Other Guy still caused a little flutter of nerves and caution in her stomach.

Natasha watched the screens, all different angles of the same subject, ran her thumb along her lower lip and held her silence.

SHIELD Holding Cell

The shifts were staggered, Colin noticed with some annoyance, making it slightly more difficult to plan his break out in the days that followed his awakening to the underground -some base instinct that recalled serpents and venom and blood slick chains recognized the earth that pressed in on the walls- militant bunker. All the soldiers wore body armor -the kind meant to stop bullets and, Colin suspected, small rockets- and there was always at least two fresh members on his guard when they took him for _testing_. It was demeaning. Humiliating. Degrading and barbaric and Colin would bet his bar exam that at least two of the procedures fell outside the boundaries of humane treatment. But then he wasn't human, was he? They took samples of his skin, his blood, even his _piss_ just to see if godly physiology meant he had a more efficient urinary system.

Admittedly, he wouldn't have minded lending some gametes -For SCIENCE!- if the lab coat that had taken them hadn't been so impersonal and, well, male. Colin had felt a distinct need to shower after that as well as melt some faces off. One of those faces happened to belong to the blonde behemoth that called itself Thor.

Colin knew for a fact that the current Thor was safely tucked away from all major metropolitan areas, happily slaughtering bunnies and herding goats.

So who in the name of Surtur was this pretender that threatened all gods everywhere?

_Then of course there is that stupid Tesseract he keeps thinking I'll help with._ Colin mused to himself as his dungeon doors opened once again. _Tesseract: A Cube that exits in four dimensions. Also known as a hypercube, seen in popular culture as a glowing blue box used by Time Lords to transmit messages over time and space. But what _brother _dear wants with a fancy answering machine I can't imagine._

"Alright, Loki," one of the faceless soldiers, the commander, stated as they filed into the room, guns at the ready. "Stark and Banner managed to set up a vid-conference with Thor's girlfriend and macgyver a teleporter: your ass is getting shipped back to daddy."

Beneath the muzzle Colin's smile went unseen. His hands twitched. He stood as one of the men carefully took him by the arm and the rest fell around him in the by now familiar escort formation. Did they really think him so weak? So stupid? They knew him for a _Loki_, and yet for them to assume he would be brought to heel simply by enchanted cuffs and the stilling of his tongue?

Colin was a god. He was a _Norse god_. He was born to Fight. Combat had been bred into his soul. The fires of destruction and discord were his to command.

The new soul stirred as Colin felt his god-spirit wake and flow down his arms. His eyes tracked the cameras that tracked him as he was escorted to an elevator, but he couldn't afford to be trapped in a tiny box.

_Now or never._

Colin slammed his shoulder into the guard on his left at the same time he kicked the one on his right into the wall. He heard something not his own crack. Adrenaline surged through his body as he hit the floor, braced his still bound hands against the spit-shone linoleum, bullets grazing the skin, and took out the legs to the next two nearest guards.

Alarms were going off: bright flashing lights and ear-splitting sirens.

The others were backing up, still firing, and some of the bullets hit but they were small problems. So small in comparison to what would happen if he _didn't_ make it out -

"AARGH!" Colin screamed past the mask as what felt like a hundred lightning bolts struck him at once.

"How'd you like that, you fucking bastard?!" Someone in a suit and tie shouted with grim satisfaction._ Coming_, the twin spirits inside Colin whispered as the faint echo of running boots was heard over the wails. _Others are coming. We can't fight them all._

_I don't intend to._

Hands shaking, Colin reached behind him and, turning to fully face the other he ripped the little sparking probes from his back. Eyes glittering, fingers spread, he raised one hand. The muzzle fell off, and his grin was manic.

Fire filled the hallway.


	4. Grail, Er, Girl Shaped Beacons

**The Loki Identity**

**An Avengers, Almighty Johnsons Crossover**

**A/N- So, um, yeah. Little trivia about the title of the fic? Shout out the The Bourne Identity, because my first thoughts was a story about Colin-as-Loki not knowing WTF was going on as he traveled the world trying to bring down SHIELD *cough*Tredstone*cough*. And Darcy/Sigyn would be his gypsy sidekick/love interest. And then my brain decided to bring HYDRA and Jotuns and Dwarves into it and the story is starting to warp all on its own... DAMMIT COLIN!  
**

**Part Four: Grail, Er, Girl Shaped Beacons**

SHIELD Underground Base, New York

Colin had fought his way up five levels of stairs all the while thanking the Fates for the _incredibly_ fit condition of his new body. It wasn't that his old one was out of shape, for a god of lazing about he was a vain thing, but gods away from the renewing light of Asgard aged and died along with their mortal kin.

Colin was going to _enjoy_ putting this body through its paces.

He kept one step ahead of the billowing smoke as roaring flames licked at his back like frolicking puppies. There was shockingly low recoil on the guns he'd appropriated for his own use, and though he himself did not own any -Why bother to shoot an enemy when you can immolate any evidence of their existence at twenty paces?- the knowledge of their use filtered and cemented into his consciousness with every pull of the trigger. The same mechanism that left instinctual knowledge of swordplay and axe wielding in the godly repertoire, so too was the maintenance and use of _every_ conceivable weapon.

The Pantheon had stopped participating in warfare as a whole long before the advent of firearms, but a weapon of war was a weapon of war, and though he wasn't the one armed god of stupidity, he didn't need to be. After all, it wasn't the god of war who was supposed to lead Hel's forces at Ragnarök, was it?

_Hel… _

Colin's heart twisted even as his body whirled: a maelstrom of death. In a mirror mounted near the ceiling he caught the reflection of several soldiers, crouched, making their way toward his position, and speaking into their head-sets. Keeping an eye on the their activity, he ejected his current magazine after checking the clip of his next. He was running out of bullets, and their guns were considerably larger and odd than Colin had become accustomed to. There was also something vaguely familiar about them that had the second-spirit ruffling its feathers as his first hummed in contemplation. Though not nearly as sluggish and muted as it had been with the muzzle and manacles on, the other had a distinctly hazy, hard to follow thought process.

"Conviction, huh?" Being the incarnation of the god of fire Colin had never had the occasion to be burned. He found he didn't care for the experience, even as broken and second hand as it was. The clink of metal on concrete refocused the escapee back on the present, and a cylindrical container rolled along the passage like an ill omen.

He braced himself against the wall as it went off, heat caressing his skin even as his ears screamed, and with teary eyes squeezed shut Colin, metaphysically, reached out. As his fingers closed in a fist another explosion rocked the bunker. Around the corner and down the hall, the Phase 2 weapons had exploded in their owners' hands, lava-hot flames devouring everything in their path, eating holes through steel and concrete.

Colin coughed and covered his mouth against the stench of flash-cooked pork and burnt hair as he picked his way around the rubble of the now collapsed hallway. Most of the bodies had been completely vaporized by the self-destructing prototypes and all that was left behind were legs and the upper half of some skulls. In several instances the heat had caused skin to fuse to concrete like some kind of morbid art installation.

"A quick death." Colin murmured, the emotions of three different and distinct beings creating a confusing and volatile mixture in his head. The god, that which was the very heart and soul of all Loki, rumbled its pleasure. For were not mortals meant to be fight and die and sacrifice for ideals and idols greater than them? The other, the child for lack of a better term, was gleeful at the destruction yet… regretful? Colin was just angry. He used that anger to sharpen his mind and and fuel his power even as he calmed the flames -he still needed to breathe, after all, and though the fire wouldn't burn him it would eat up his oxygen if he didn't keep moving- with a gesture and mounted the staircase of rubble that his little prank had caused.

As his head poked up through the slag lined hole to the next level he was forced to duck a vial of poorly thrown acid.

He had found the laboratories, which meant he was almost to the ground level.

And laboratories meant academics, meant scientists.

Scientists meant fuckers who should have known better than to fuck with a god. Motherless sons of whores that were backing away, eyes wide with the knowledge of their frail mortality, nothing between them and their deity but a shiny badge of authority worth less than the laminate used to protect it.

He was going to shatter their knee caps so they couldn't run and then-

"Hey!" Female, unafraid, accompanied by the warning crackle of electricity. "Leave them alone!"

It was amusingly ironic, he thought, they'd initiated lock down procedures bolting the door from the inside, but he hadn't done anything so plebeian as use a door. Best laid plans of mice and men. _But not of gods._

"And why should… I…" Colin kept his scavenged firearms trained on the huddled mass of academics, but his head slowly turned to round to face the woman. Medium height, a pretty kind of plain with breasts that begged to be suckled, and hair that flowed like warm chocolate. Embers drifted from the hole in the floor, catching in the air like sparkles. The warning sirens went silent with a snap and a hiss. Light bulbs exploded and the ground itself shuddered in ecstasy. It was as if the very world suddenly clicked into place and everything was _right _and _good_ but in the _worst way_.

Her eyes drank him down like a drowning woman and the taser clacked to the floor as her hands rose to entwine in his hair as perfect lips twisted into a smile that was a challenge. Words bubbled up from the very depths of his soul, words old and alien, and spilled out of his mouth in an uncontrollable stream only to be swallowed up as their lips crashed together like the sea against the shore, parting and joining yet forever locked.

They could live a thousand times a thousand lifetimes, but it always came back to this moment.

Gunderson Residence, New Zealand

Ingrid picked at her fingernails as they waited for their host to appear. Anders -a very, very poor example of a god nowhere near the gallantry that was Olaf, the oracle thought- was upset. His grandfather was trying to calm him down, but apparently Axl-as-Odin's edict that he wasn't allowed to have sex was wearing on his temper. Though Ingrid thought it was good for him. Addiction was serious business.

"How can she not be the Frigg? Lights exploded when their eyes met! If that isn't a sign of meant to be then I don't know what is!" Anders kicked a chair in frustration.

"Well, actually." Ingrid offered up from her comfortable position by the well stocked bar. "Not necessarily. In order to facilitate… various things… all gods have an inbuilt recognition system of other gods. The stronger the god, or goddess, the stronger the reaction. Most of us are middling to minor, but Eva is… the Omega. It could be argued that the only one stronger than her is Odin."

"I thought that _was_ Frigg! Don't they share the magic couch of voyeurism or something?" Anders continued as he drifted over the bar and, in a bizarre twist of expectations, rifled through the fridge and began busily making sandwiches.

"Hliðskjálf." Olaf corrected. "And yes, but no. Frigg is meant to be Odin's equal. In wit and wisdom and magic, but she never says what she knows and in that-"

"Which is horribly unfair and one of many reasons Agnetha says gods are bad for us goddesses."

"-she is subordinate."

Clutching at straws, Anders' grip on the mustard became a little too tight causing the yellow sauce to hit the bread and the counter beneath. "Is that why you think she isn't Frigg? Maybe you're wrong. You were wrong about meteor lady being_ about_ the Frigg, maybe you're wrong about Eva being _not_."

"We're pretty sure." Olaf countered as he took Anders' sandwich away and began clearing it of excess mustard.

"Frigg is about marriage, and childbirth. Life! Eva, though powerful and sweet in her own way, is not." Ingrid offered reasonably.

"And what makes you say that?"

"She works as a butcher."

"Mike's a builder."

"Her father is Loki."

"Inadmissible."

"Everything rots when she gets upset. Which has been happening too often of late to be a coincidence."

Ander's opened his mouth to retort about maid services not being maid services -he'd found quite the interesting stash of toys in Daddy Dearest's bedroom- but paused to look around the room. Vases from well-wishers full of dried and wilted flowers. A casserole brought over just that morning by a lady with a truly lovely and pert ass was covered in mold. No matter how pissed she got, Anders couldn't imagine the Frigg doing that.

"O-kay. So maybe you have a point. Are you going to tell her she _isn't_ the Frigg? After her and Axl have already set a wedding date? Sorry, love, we messed up? You are actually the goddess of dead shit. Oh, I know! Let's get Ty to tell her! They can be cold and unhappy together!"

"Me tell who what?" Ty called as he came down the stairs into the den. Distantly, the other three could hear doors opening and slamming in the floor above. "Oh, sammies!"

Olaf frowned as his grandson snatched the sandwich from his hands and began eating it. "And where have you been? Mike was the only one who picked up his phone and he didn't know where anyone else was."

Ty shrugged. "Sorry, had it on silent. Eva and Axl wanted to steal her dad's body out of the morgue and they needed someone to help keep it cold."

"Oh! You should have called me, I'm great at planning heists… oh… that didn't sound right…" Ingrid looked down to find Anders' hand placed gently over hers.

"Tell me more." Anders asked, voice like music.

Olaf cleared his throat loudly, and gently led Ingrid upstairs to confront the Mistress of the House.

SHIELD Helicarrier

Natasha had been, physically, the closest when the call came in. She had been out just to be out, walking down recovering streets to remind herself that there was a reason she did what she did, but by the time she reached the base the smoke and fire was too thick to do anything. They didn't know Loki's location and he'd been collapsing tunnels as he went. Even if she had found him, the Black Widow held no illusions on who would win a straight up fight.

Steve was in Washington. Stark's armor, and back up armor, was dismantled for repair and unable to do anything. Banner was Banner, and the Hulk would have caused more damage to the facility than help the situation. Clint had been one of those buried, but luckily was dug out before running out of air. Thor didn't have a communicator, and by the time he arrived on scene it was already too late. Loki, and the single not-a-civilian he'd taken with him, were long gone.

Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes and Loki had done the impossible, and despite there being no known reason for them to be on hand each Avenger felt distinctly at fault for the rogue Asgardian's rampage. They could do nothing but watch the security footage, slowly rolling back the minutes, the hours, trying to figure out what changed. What went wrong.

Natasha felt her fingernails biting into her palms as she watched a dark haired girl all but Tango with the mad god. Darcy Lewis. Political Science Major. Not a single thing about her suggest she was anything but ordinary. Safe.

So how the hell was she flowing around Loki like they had been partners for years, fighting with a skill level that steadily increased as though she was a veteran who had merely left her abilities to rust. On another screen, though the view was tinted and static, Thor paled as he heard the first exchange between Loki and his new minion. Fury caught the expression and rounded on the blonde prince.

Already they'd learned that Loki had, apparently, powers over fire and combustion that even his brother hadn't known Loki possessed or utilized during the invasion. That Loki knew nearly lost knowledge in the form of Runes. A knowledge that was forbidden to all but Odin, and had Thor squeezing his eyes shut and demanding all records of Loki employing the power to be destroyed lest another learn from his brother's examples.

"What are they saying?"

"I should not-"

"Do you know how many of my people were roasted by that man after you gave me your word he was rendered harmless?"

Thor's eyes glistened, but he nodded. "The Lady Darcy, she… she says: I am Sigyn, Goddess of Fidelity, of the Hard-Won Victory for though it may take years upon decades those I favor always succeed. I am the Beloved of Loki. Destined to be.

"And my brother replies: I am Loki, God of the Hearth and Home, of Fire and Passion and all that flows from such be it creation or destruction. Beloved of Sigyn. Come with me, keeper-of-my-heart, and together we shall grow."

Whangamaungamoa, New Zealand

Derrick -Thor to anyone who mattered- stared at the television with a vaguely confused look on his face. He'd just pulled a double shift at the factory, he was ready to take his earned rest, but when he sat down with a plate of roasted goat and flicked on the Telly he was met with a scene that baffled his admittedly large suspension of reality. America had been attacked by whale riding aliens being led by _Loki_, which honestly didn't bother him. It was America, not New Zealand, and he honestly didn't give a crap what other gods did so long as it didn't interfere with him. However, numbering among the key defenders of truth, justice, and the American Way was _Thor_.

But Thor couldn't have been fighting in New York.

He'd been yelling at that mortal who called herself his future in-law, telling her that his daughter was going to have a right and proper hand fasting, and if he saw a fucking preacher anywhere near the clearing his hammer wasn't going to be sitting in his daughter's lap but tasting a new flavor of blood.

Obviously, this Thor was a name slandering, show off, nancy boy impostor. The hair was bad enough, but the hammer? It was like a great big compensatory neon sign saying _Thor has a tiny dick_. Which he _didn't._

The whole thing was sacrilege. And unmanly.

"DELPHINE!" Derrick yelled, throwing his plate to the ground and standing up. He took his own beloved hammer from the table and slipped it through his belt loop. His thumb thoughtfully stroked the handle.

His daughter came running from her room, hairbrush in hand. "Yes, Daddy?"

"Pack my things, Delphine. I'm going on a trip. Might be a few days."

His daughter's eyes flicked to the cracked television screen, to the images of the carnage and aftermath, and paled.


End file.
